The mystery of Angelina Frood
paper propped up against the coffee-pot. It was a pleasant, sunny
morning at the end of April. The birds were twittering joyously in the
trees at the back of the house, a premature bluebottle perambulated
the window-pane, after an unsuccessful attempt to crawl under the
dish-cover, and somewhere in the town an optimistic bell-ringer was
endeavouring to lure unwary loiterers out of the sunshine into the
shadow of the sanctuary.
It was all very agreeable and soothing. The birds were delightful in
the exuberance of their spirits; even the bluebottle was a harbinger
of summer; and the solo of the bell-ringer, softened by distance,
impinged gently on the appreciative ear, awakening a grateful sense of
immunity. The sunshine and the placid sounds were favourable to
reflection, which the Sunday paper was powerless to disturb. As my eye
roamed inattentively down the inconsequent column of printers’ errors,
my mind flitted, beelike, from topic to topic; from my vague
professional prospects to the visitors whom I was expecting on the
morrow and from them to the rather disturbing incident of the previous
evening. But here my thoughts had a tendency to stick; and I was just
considering whether the proprieties admitted of my making a morning
call on Mrs. Frood, with a view to clearing up the obscurity, when the
street-door bell rang. The unusual sound at such an unlikely time
caused me to sit up and listen with just a tinge of uneasy expectancy.
A few moments later Mrs. Dunk opened the door, and having stated
concisely and impassively, “Mrs. Gillow,” retired, leaving the door
ajar. I started up in something approaching alarm, and hurried across
to the consulting-room, where I found Mrs. Gillow standing by the
chair with anxiety writ large on her melancholy face.
“There’s nothing amiss, I hope, Mrs. Gillow?” said I.
“I am sorry to say there is, sir,” she replied. “I hope you’ll excuse
me for disturbing you on a Sunday morning, but I thought, as you were
her doctor, and a friend, too, and I may say----”
“But what has happened?” I interrupted impatiently.
“Why, sir, the fact is that she went out last night and she hasn’t
come back.”
“You are quite sure she hasn’t come back?”
“Perfectly. I saw her just before she went out, and she said she was
coming to see you, to get something to make her sleep, and then she
was just going into Chatham, and that she would be back soon, so that
she could go to bed early. I sat up quite late listening for her, and
before I went to bed I went down and knocked at both her doors, and as
I didn’t get any answer, I looked into both rooms. But she wasn’t in
either, and her little supper was untouched on the table in the
sitting-room. I couldn’t sleep a wink all night for worrying about
her, and the first thing this morning I went down, and, when I found
the door unbolted and unchained, I went into her rooms again. But
there was no sign of her. Her supper was still there, untouched, and
her bed had not been slept in.”
“Did you look downstairs?” I asked.
“Yes. She usually kept the door of the basement stairs locked, I
think, but it was unlocked this morning, so I went down and searched
all over the basement; but she wasn’t there.”
“It is very extraordinary, Mrs. Gillow,” I said, “and rather alarming.
I certainly understood that she was going home as soon as she had been
to Chatham. By the way, do you know what she was going to Chatham
for?”
“I don’t, sir. She might have been going there to do some shopping,
but it was rather late, though it was Saturday night.”
“You don’t know, I suppose, whether she took any things with
her--though she couldn’t have taken much, as she had only a little
handbag with her when she came here.”
“She hasn’t taken any of her toilet things,” said Mrs. Gillow,
“because I looked over her dressing-table, and all her brushes and
things were there; and, as you say, she couldn’t have taken much in
that little bag. What do you think we had better do, sir?”
“I think,” said I, “that, in the first place, I will go and see Mr.
Japp. He is a relative and knows more about her than we do, and, of
course, it will be for him to take any measures that may seem
necessary. At any rate, I will see him and hear what he says.”
“Don’t you think we ought to let the police know?” she asked.
“Well, Mrs. Gillow,” I said, “we mustn’t be too hasty. Mrs. Frood had
reasons for avoiding publicity. Perhaps we had better not busy
ourselves too much until we are quite certain that she has gone. She
may possibly return in the course of the day.”
“I am sure I hope so,” she replied despondently. “But I am very much
afraid she won’t. I have a presentiment that something dreadful has
happened to her.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked. “Have you any reason for thinking so?”
“I have no actual reason,” she answered, “but I have always thought
that there was something behind her fear of meeting her husband.”
Having no desire to discuss speculative opinions, I made no direct
reply to this. Apparently Mrs. Gillow had no more to tell, and as I
was anxious to see Mr. Japp and hear if he could throw any light on
the mystery, I adjourned the discussion on which she would have
embarked and piloted her persuasively towards the door. “I shall see
you again later, Mrs. Gillow,” I said, “and will let you know if I
hear anything. Meanwhile, I think you had better not speak of the
matter to anybody.”
As soon as she was gone I made rapid preparations to go forth on my
errand, and a couple of minutes later was speeding down the street at
a pace dictated rather by the agitation of my mind than by any urgency
of purpose. Although, by an effort of will, I had preserved a quiet,
matter-of-fact demeanour while I was talking to Mrs. Gillow, her
alarming news had fallen on me like a thunder-bolt; and even now, as I
strode forward swiftly, my thoughts seemed numbed by the suddenness of
the catastrophe. That something terrible had happened I had little
more doubt than had Mrs. Gillow, and a good deal more reason for my
fears; for that last interview with the missing woman, looked back
upon by the light of her unaccountable disappearance, now appeared
full of dreadful suggestions. I had thought that she looked
frightened, and she admitted to a presentiment of evil. Of whom or of
what was she afraid?
And what did she mean by a presentiment? Reasonable people do not have
gratuitous presentiments; and I recalled her evasive reply when I
asked if she had any reasons for her foreboding of evil. Now, there
was little doubt that she had; that the shadow of some impending
danger had fallen on her and that she knew it.
As I approached the premises of Japp and Bundy, I was assailed by a
sudden doubt as to whether Mr. Japp lived there; and this doubt
increased when I had executed two loud knocks at the door without
eliciting any response. I was just raising my hand to make a third
attack when I became aware of Bundy’s head rising above the curtain of
the office window; and even in my agitation I could not but notice its
extremely dishevelled state. His hair--usually “smarmed” back neatly
from the forehead and brushed over the crown of his head--now hung
down untidily over his face like a bunch of rat’s tails, and the
unusualness of his appearance was increased by the fact that he wore
neither spectacles nor the indispensable eyeglass. The apparition,
however, was visible but for a moment, for even as I glanced at him he
made a sign to me to wait and forthwith vanished.
There followed an interval of about a minute, at the end of which the
door opened and I entered, discovering Bundy behind it in a
dressing-gown and pyjamas, but with his hair neatly brushed and his
eye-glass duly adjusted.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Doc.,” said he. “Fact is, your knock woke
me. The early bird catches the worm in his pyjamas.”
“I apologize for disturbing your slumbers,” said I, “but I wanted to
see Japp. Isn’t he in?”
“Japp doesn’t live here,” said Bundy, motioning to me to follow him
upstairs. “He used to, but the house began to fill up with the
business stuff and we had to make a drawing office and a store-room,
so he moved off to a house on Boley Hill, and now I live here like
Robinson Crusoe.”
“Do you mean that you do your own cooking and housework?”
“Lord, no,” he replied. “I get most of my meals at Japp’s place.
Prepare my own breakfast sometimes--I’m going to now: and I make tea
for us both. Got a little gas-stove in the kitchen. And a charlady
comes in every day to wash up and do my rooms. If you are not in a
hurry, I’ll walk round with you to Japp’s house.”
“I am in rather a hurry,” said I; “at least--well, I don’t know why I
should be; but I am rather upset. The fact is, a very alarming thing
has happened. I have just heard of it from Mrs. Gillow. It seems that
Mrs. Frood went out last evening and has not come back.”
Bundy whistled. “She’s done a bolt,” said he. “I wonder why. Do you
think she can have run up against hubby in the town?”
“I don’t believe for a moment that she has gone away voluntarily,”
said I. “She came to see me last night to get a sedative because she
couldn’t sleep, and she said that she was going home as soon as she
had been to Chatham, and that she was going to take her medicine and
go to bed early.”
“That might have been a blind,” suggested Bundy; “or she might have
run up against her husband in Chatham.”
I shook my head impatiently. “That is all nonsense, Bundy. A woman
doesn’t walk off into space in that fashion. Something has happened to
her, I feel sure. I only hope it isn’t something horrible; one doesn’t
dare to think of the possibilities that the circumstances suggest.”
“No,” said Bundy, “and it’s better not to. Great mistake to let your
imagination run away with you. Don’t you worry, Doc. She’ll probably
turn up all right, or send Japp a line to say where she has gone to.”
“Devil take it, Bundy!” I exclaimed irritably, “you are talking as if
she were just a cat that had strayed away. If you don’t care a hang
what becomes of her, I do. I am extremely alarmed about her. How soon
will you be ready?”
“I’ll run and get on my things at once,” he replied, with a sudden
change of manner. “You must excuse me, old chap. I didn’t realize that
you were so upset. I’ll be with you in a few minutes and then we will
start. Japp will be able to give me some breakfast.”
He bustled off--to the next room, as I gathered from the sound--and
left me to work off my impatience by gazing out of the window and
pacing restlessly up and down the barely-furnished sitting-room. But,
impatient as I was, the rapidity with which he made his toilet
surprised me, for in less than ten minutes he reappeared, spick and
span, complete with hat, gloves, and stick, and announced that he was
ready.
“I am not usually such a sluggard,” he said, as we walked quickly
along the street, “but yesterday evening I got a novel. I ought not to
read novels. When I do, I am apt to make a single mouthful of it; and
that is what I did last night. I started the book at nine and finished
it at two this morning; and the result is that I am as sleepy as an
owl even now.”
In illustration of this statement he gave a prodigious yawn and then
turned up the steep little thoroughfare, where he presently halted at
the door of a small, old-fashioned house and rang the bell. The door
was opened by a middle-aged servant, from whom he learned that Mr.
Japp was at home, and to whom Bundy communicated his needs in the
matter of breakfast. We found Mr. Japp seated by the dining-room
window, studying a newspaper with the aid of a large pipe, and Bundy
proceeded to introduce me and the occasion of my visit in a few crisp
sentences.
Mr. Japp’s reception of the news was very different from his